Ackbar Abbas looks into the enduring paradox of urban modernity through the lens of the exorbitant and generic city. Hong Kong itself has a rich identity as post colonial city, the city has mundane or memorable stories everyday, rapid development, and the ever-changing nature has vivid colours of its own. However, the exorbitance is almost invisible by looking into the city scape, cinema challenges that and represent the exorbitance of the city and emerge in the backdrop, that allow the urban city to exceed its function that helps to unfolding the narrative. According to the passage, “The great promise of the cinema is that it does not have to give us picture of the city.” When modernity became the mainstream under globalisation, cinema provides a window to looking the fragmentary narratives and experiences to the city. In that sense, would it be fair to say that cinema gives the generic city souls?
Somia An
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This is an excellent and thoughtful reflection on Abbas’ notions of the exorbitant and generic city – especially in acknowledging the historical narrative of Hong Kong in your response. You conclude with a very good question. Continue with that train of thought and consider to what extend can the “exorbitant city” coexist with “the generic city”? Do you see this already occurring in Hong Kong?